Rating: 
Summary: Agonizingly long and slow moving!
Review: This book could have made all the same points in about 250 pages. Deception and duplicity pervade every character to the point of numbness. They are paralyzed by each other. I feel that Morris leaves a lot of loose ends. At the very end, I felt that the author was given a deadline and just threw the ending together to get the manuscript in on time. I won't recommend this book to any of my friends. It's tiresome
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Summary: The book was very touching. I would recommnd it to myfriends
Review: I related to Marie, I have been in her shoes. I have learned from my mistakes and have vowed as Marie to never let anyone control my life
Rating: 
Summary: Songs in Ordinary Time is a waste of time
Review: The author tries to explore too many characters in depth and it doesn't work for her readers, or maybe it just doesn't work for me. I found the plot to be tedious, the characters too predictable, and the novel itself too long. She could have have a good novel if she hadn't tried to include the whole town's point of view!
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Summary: Engaging but wouldn't recommend it to others
Review: I very much enjoyed the writing style and the characters but it completely left me hanging. I like closure. I like to feel that I've learned something when I've finished the book. Anyone from a small town can relate to a lot of the feelings in the book, but it does seem that it was all set in 1997 - not 1960. Maybe the book would have been too long if Ms. Morris decided to draw any conclusions and so she just decided to write a sequel
Rating: 
Summary: Songs In Ordinary Time
Review: This book was indeed hard to get into, but once I figured it out, it went more smoothly. I read this book in about a week because I have lots of free time. Why did I read it so fast? Was it enjoyable? No, no, and no again. I didn't like the book because it was a story of a family who I wouldn't want to know, living in a place I wouldn't want to visit, doing things I didn't care about. By the time I was about 1/3 of the way into the book I started disliking it. The author uses so many words to get to the point it becomes rather tiring. Towards the end, I would skip lines just to get to the point of that "chapter". This was the first of Oprah's book selections that I didn't like at all. The reason I read it to the end? I thought it would get better. It didn't
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Summary: A taste of reality from Mary McGarry Morris
Review: I wish to take this opportunity to commend the author for a caring and heart-wrenching account of a family in crisis.
Being a child of an alcoholic parent, I know first hand how Benji must have felt; if you ignore it, it will go away.
Well, in real life it just doesn't work that way.
The author gives us insight in to the dynamics that make the family of an alcoholic tick.
The spouse, in this case, Marie, is just this side of sane. She walks a fine line, that only her children can keep her from falling off of and yet, she continually pushes them further and further away.
She is longing for a love that can only be found between the pages of a Harlequin romance novel, but is too proud to admit it.
The children are her constant source of love and aggrevation.
I found myself completely drawn into the lives of the people of the small town of Atkinson and all of their idiosycricies. This book is another winner picked by Oprah. If you have never read any of the books she has picked in the past, then don't pass this one by. You will be enthralled by the characters and will be a fan of the author for life
Rating: 
Summary: Like watching a train wreck-horrifying but compelling
Review: "Songs in Ordinary Time" is filled with characters you don't like doing things you don't like but you can't stop reading it. You want to shake each one of them by the shoulders and say "Snap out of it!" Yet even in their desperate lives there is something so compelling that you must continue to read this long and engrossing book
Rating:
Summary: A great book any way you look at it.
Review: I truly enjoyed this book and I am sorry it is finished, I cared for this family and as the plot thickened I grew increasinly uneasy about their possible futures. I was frightened for Marie and her children. I was almost afraid to turn the pages at one point. There are more families like this than we would believe, stuggling against the odds and someway finding a way to go on the next day and the next week and the next year.
As for the ending it was realistic, I did not feel let down but relieved there would be another day for them. I also enjoyed Dangerous Woman and plan to read Vanished
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Summary: An absolutely terrific novel
Review: I can't get over how much this book enveloped me! I could go on for hours about the characters and the wonderful writing
Rating:
Summary: Songs in Ordinary Time
Review: I find myself joining the horde of readers following Oprah's recommendations [I just loved Stones From The River].
Songs in Ordinary Time drew me in to the Fermoyle family saga and their quest for an identity they could triumph over, and then it left me flat with its unclimactic ending. I don't expect every book to discard the black cloud of despair and reveal a glimmer of hope at its conclusion, but for me Ms. Morris built a staircase of hope, false as it might have been and stunted me with the reality that not all things in life are stitched at the seams with a silver lining. I personally am not used to books leaving me feeling empty and sad, though I now realize this was Ms. Morris' subliminal intention [thanks to Cardinal15's astute review].
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